This is the Judo blog of Lance Wicks. In this blog I cover mainly Judo and related topics. My Personal blog is over at LanceWicks.com where I cover more geeky topics. Please do leave comments on what you read or use the Contact Me form to send me an email with your thoughts and ideas.

FDSC.... All done!!!!

as of now I have finished my Foundation degree in sport from University of Bath. WooHoo!!!

It has yet to properly sink in I think, so until it does here is an update on the final day(s).

Thursday, Debate & Conference.Thursday morning was the time for the second year students to hold their debate (see www.judocoach.com/debate ) for all the details, I shall be uploading the video of the debate as and when it is available.

I was involved (slightly) as I helped them with the slides and so forth. It turned out really well, I hope all the second years are proud of themselves. the arguments were good and an enjoyable event.

In the afternoon, we third year students held our conference ( www.judocon.org )which consisted of two streams. One was the defence of performance analysis posters downstairs in the public foyer. My poster came out HUGE! Terrible typos in it too, but that is what happens when you are in a rush. We only had a 4 days to get them ready if we wanted the full 2m X 1m size. next time, i would really like to spend more time getting it all pretty.

Part of the assessment is to defend the poster, which consisted of being asked a bunch of questions about the poster and what it shows. I was pretty lucky because it was based on the research I did last year in Derry. So i knew quite a bit about it obviously.

The second stream was the giving of 10 minute oral presentations up stairs in the auditorium (where the debate was held). The presentations were all on different aspects of mental skills development AKA Sport Psychology.

My presentation was specifically about Anxiety and Imagery for Judo. So dealing with over anxiety by doing imagery work with athletes. I was really pleased with the presentation I gave. I have to date never managed to delivery a good presentation, till now! Not exactly Churchill but it was a pretty good attempt. I was happy with what I did and it seemed to go over quite well, so I am chuffed to bits to have developed in this area.

After the conference, we went to a formal meal to celebrate our successfully completing this the first FDSC/EJU level 4 course.

It is weird to think about the fact that I am (unless things go horribly wrong somehow) one of the first people in the world to have this degree and this EJU coaching level 4 certification.

I shall be the first New Zealander to do this.

Again the significance of this is only really just starting to dawn on me. I think I'll stop thinking about it as I am getting a bit jittery! :)

So.....It's over!

I have blogged the entire experience over the past three years, and as Vinnie Jones might say "It's been emotional"!

Happy? Sad? A bit of both really.I have applied to do the honours course starting next year (EJU Level 5) and really would like to do it. Hopefully my grade average will be high enough to make it on. So maybe there will be more blog entries in future...?

I shall post more next week to summarise the course and how it's been to go through it, stay tuned.

Till then, I just want to do the oscars thing and thank a bunch of folks.

Firstly, my thanks to Joyce Malley for telling me about the course, getting Mike on your mobile and basically getting me on the course.

Secondly, thanks to Mike Callan our course leader who both let me on the course and has put up with me and this little blog for the past three years.

Third, the EJU and University of Bath. This is an amazing course and I have had a blast and learned a lot.

Fourth, my fellow students.To everyone in "Generation 1" who have made it to the end, thanks for your help, friendship, abuse, fun, patience. To those who havn't made the whole journey, thanks to you too. To the Gen2's and Gen3's you keep it up! It's worth it, keep ongoing and it's been good meeting you!

Fifth, to all the people who have been in contact over the past three years by email, comments, etc. Thanks for saying hi, knowing people have been reading has helped me keep blogging and Ihope you've got something useful from my little effort to document what it is like to go through the course.

FDSC year 3, Block 2, Day 8.

Thursday, August 2, 2007, 03:34 AM

Hi all,Well today was a long ol' day. That said it was saved in part by the fact that we had Tom Herron first thing. Tom took us on a Psychotherapy session for sport which was really good and interesting. There was a bit of the esoteric, a bit of the theoretical and a bit of practical. A good mix.

The "Darth Vader" breathing was probably the highlight. Though I suspect the relaxation interventions we all did probably helped a lot of people out more than Tom might have realised.

The workload in this our final block is bordering on ridiculous. The number of people skipping lectures to work on assignments has been going up daily. Everyday I see people who have had little sleep and have been up all night typing.

It makes me appreciate my ability to switch off and have a beer (like a good kiwi) and relax.

After Tom, we had Juergen Klinger, who was as always excellent. He has a really nice style of presentation and carries a great deal of respect. His strategies session dealt mainly with mental strategies and was really interesting.

After the lunch break we had Mark England for a keynote lecture, which was amazing. Mark is involved with the Beijing 2008 administration for the British Olympic Committee (BOC). So spoke to us about how the BOC is approaching Beijing and to a degree how they approached Athens and London 2012.

It was a real priveledge to listen to him. Organising a team delegation of 300+ athletes to attend Beijing is an amazing responsibility and he was really focussed on how what he (and the others that work with him) can help the British team perform and bring back models from what promises to be an amazing games.

Having listened to his lecture I can't wait until Beijing starts, it would seem that it will be something amazing to behold! I hope that the GBR team and of course the NZ team do well there.

If you avoid the politics surrounding Beijing it is just amazing. They have 7000 people a day working (apparently) on the venue. At some point last year Mark said Beijing was receiving/using 1/3 of the global supply of steel. Not China, but Beijing alone...amazing.

I found it fascinating to see that underbelly of an Olympic mission, I hope one day I can take what I learned from that lecture back home to NZ.

After the lecture I spent sometime with the year two students helping them get their debate rehearsal done. I am helping with all things geeky as I did last year for my year and again hosting the debate here on this site at www.judocoach.com/debate

Looks like an interesting debate, it will be interesting to see how the vote goes. I will of course update the blof with more information on how the debate goes and the conference which we third year students are putting on which encompasses the debate ( see www.judocon.org ).

We have discovered that Envic Galea, and Marius Vizier of the European Judo Union (EJU) shall be in attendance... ulp, no pressure!

On that topic I have my assignements pretty well done, aways room for polish, but with the time constraints we don't really have time to do that :(But mine is done and there is a fair amount of research and referencing included, not as much as probably is required and perhaps the prose is not well constructed, but hey, when time is short you have to... as I am known to say take the approach of "if a job is worth doing it is worth doing half arsed but on time!"

So Thursday is the big presentation and debate and conference day. Ulp! I hate public speaking!

FDSC Year 3, Block 2, Day 7.

whoah... what a day. The pace is getting hectic over here in Bath. An amazing number of people were hiding away with fingers flying over keyboards trying to get the assignments tucked away.

I actually managed to get a day ahead of myself today and sent my Learning in the Workplace assignemnt in a day early, which is great.

Today Started gently, which sounds like a contradiction but is not. This morning we had a "Self Study" session, which basically means you have some time to get your work done whilst here. I took the time to get my LIW assigment PDF'd and sent mainly.

I also went to the printing department and picked up my poster for Thursday. It's HUGE!!! Darn it though I found a typo!!! Not irrecoverable though. But more importantly it is completed and that's a huge weight off my mind.

At 11am we Had Alan Preston, who was excellent. I really enjoyed his radial views. Much like my father, his involvment in Judo is vicarious through his sons primarily.

We had a practical Keynote lecture today also.Wil Luschen who took a session on Judo principles, which amazingly was very similar to what New Zealand's late National coach Ben Griffiths spent many hours trying to get me to understand. really similar, any one who mastered Ben's "clickety click" half step entry to throws would have been right at home. really interesting and I had an absolute ball as it really gave me a feeling of being a younger man training with my pals and trying to learn Ben's way of doing things. I was fortunate also to speak with Wil after the session and later in the parade bar.

I spent a majority of the evening adding to the word count on my Sport psychology paper. Which is getting there.

Tomorrow looks interesting, we have Psychotherapy first, Competition strategies second, a lecture about Beijing later and a tutorial last. Plus Randori which i hope to attend in the evening, work permitting.

The course is going well, despite the fact that I (and others I think) feel that the assignments being packed into the time we are hear is a major negative. It's too cramped, there is not enough time to get the assignments produced. No time for proper research and reflection. I think many of us are hoping that as the course matures the balance of work to rest ration improves.

It is a shame that so many people are spending all there time typing rather than attending lectures and socialising with their peers. :(

Much like JuJitsu, Kung Fu, Karate, Aikido and other marial arts, Judo is an effective and powerful self defence. It does not however incorporate any kicks or punches. In Judo throws are used along with ground fighting techniques including arm locks, strangles, chokes and pinning techniques.

Judo in Europe is strong, and has been so historically for a long time. Specifically, France and Germany, along with the former Soviet Block countries. European Judo has been instrumental in the progress and history of Judo. The formation of the European Judo Union (EJU) was the for runner to the International Judo Federation (IJF) and is a major force in modern Judo.